My folly was upon me, and I thought it was for me.  I know the truth now.  Sleeping, the old memory revived in you of her whom waking you will never remember again.  But the look was there, and I bade you awake.  My soul rose in my eyes.  I hung upon your lips.  The loving word I longed for seemed already to tremble in the air.  Then came the truth.  You awoke, and your face was stone, calm, smiling, indifferent, unloving.  And all this Israel Kafka had seen, hiding like a thief almost beside us.  He saw it all, he heard it all, my words of love, my agony of waiting, my utter humiliation, my burning shame.  Was I cruel to him?  He had made me suffer, and he suffered in his turn.  All this you did not know.  You know it now.  There is nothing more to tell.  Will you wait here until he comes?  Will you look on, and be glad to see me die?  Will you remember in the years to come with satisfaction that you saw the witch killed for her many misdeeds, and for the chief of them all—­for loving you?”

The Wanderer had listened to her words, but the tale they told was beyond the power of his belief.  He stood still in his place, with folded arms, debating what he should do to save her.  One thing alone was clear.  She loved him to distraction.  Possibly, he thought, her story was but an invention to excuse her cruelty and to win his commiseration.  It failed to do either at first, but yet he would not leave her to her fate.

“You shall not die if I can help it,” he said simply.

“And if you save me, do you think that I will leave you?” she asked with sudden agitation, turning and half rising from her seat.  “Think what you will be doing, if you save me.  Think well.  You say that Israel Kafka is desperate.  I am worse than desperate, worse than mad with my love.”

She sank back again and hid her face for a moment.  He, on his part, began to see the terrible reality and strength of her passion, and silently wondered what the end would be.  He, too, was human, and pity for her began at last to touch his heart.

“You shall not die, if I can save you,” he said again.

She sprang to her feet very suddenly and stood before him.

“You pity me!” she cried.  “What lie is that which says that there is a kinship between pity and love?  Think well—­beware—­be warned.  I have told you much, but you do not know me yet.  If you save me, you save me but to love you more than I do already.  Look at me.  For me there is neither God, nor hell, nor pride, nor shame.  There is nothing that I will not do, nothing I shall be ashamed or afraid of doing.  If you save me, you save me that I may follow you as long as I live.  I will never leave you.  You shall never escape my presence, your whole life shall be full of me—­you do not love me, and I can threaten you with nothing more intolerable than myself.  Your eyes will weary of the sight of me and your ears at the sound of my voice.  Do you think I have no hope?  A moment ago I had